25 years ago in Reason

"The only beneficiaries of any farm subsidy are domestic farmers. Home consumers lose. Foreign consumers lose. Foreign producers lose. Taxpayers everywhere lose. The environment loses. Debt-ridden Third World countries lose. Pleasing farms-and satisfying a vague need for 'food self-sufficiency'-is the only reason for agricultural subsidies."

-Marty Zupan, "The Farm Barrier"

"Now that Congress has decided that fiber optics, integrated circuits, and supercomputers have the same status as military bases, dams, and post offices, there is no going back. We cannot depend upon the universities themselves to reject pork-barrel funds. No matter how strongly a university president believes in peer review and the allocation of research money on merit alone, he can't afford to turn it down while other universities line up at the federal trough."

-Joseph P. Martino, "Pork Invades the Lab"

"It is far easier to get people to change their minds about ideas than it is to get them to vote for a third party embodying those ideas."

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